


Desolation's King

by vulcunt



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Episode: s01e08 Balance of Terror, Harassment, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sexual Harassment, Sexual Tension, political prisoner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 10:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30003624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcunt/pseuds/vulcunt
Summary: Two sides of the same coin, gazing at each other through prison bars. Pre-slash.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Romulan Commander (TOS: Balance of Terror)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Desolation's King

Jim walked into the brig, nodding at the midshipman on duty. “At ease. You’re dismissed, I’ll be fine with our guest.”

The crewman nodded and entered a few commands into the security console before stepping away and exiting the brig, leaving Jim alone with the Romulan commander.

“I did not realize I was a guest, captain. I was under the impression I was your prisoner. I have to say, Federation hospitality leaves much to be desired.”

Jim took the crewman’s place behind the security console, checking a few readings and making some adjustments before he stepped away, advancing toward the buzzing security field that divided the prisoner’s cell from the rest of the brig. He held a padd that was now remotely connected to the security console’s settings.

Jim came to stand tall yet relaxed in front of the cell, adjusting a setting on the padd, not bothering to look up. “You _are_ a prisoner.” Jim tapped through some security identity checks and approved some edits to the commander’s file, before finally looking up. Directly into the commander’s dark eyes.

“Your vessel violated the Terran-Romulan Treaty. You crossed into Federation territory and destroyed Federation outposts. You are a criminal under Federation law and a political prisoner.” Jim held the commander’s dark, quiet gaze for a moment before glancing back down to the padd, tapping open the new file on the Romulan commander, intentionally ignoring the Romulan himself.

The file was unsurprisingly sparse. Since the end of the Terran-Romulan conflict over a hundred years ago, information on the Romulans, aside from old iterations of their language, was scarce. They hadn’t even known about Romulans’ physiological similarities to Vulcans. Jim had a hunch that the information about such matters had been buried or destroyed. To what end, he wasn’t sure…yet.

They had next to no information about their prisoner, aside from Jim’s own report about the incident that revealed the Romulan ship violating the boundaries of the Neutral Zone, and McCoy’s medical report of injuries sustained in the Enterprise’s pursuit and destruction of the vessel. The injuries sustained by the Romulan crew had since been healed. The commander had been unconscious when he and his surviving crewmembers had been beamed aboard. Jim’s orders to beam the enemy crew aboard before the Romulan ship self-destructed was a split-second decision. Strict interpreters of the prime directive might consider Jim’s actions a violation of non-Federation members’ rights. But Jim considered the waste of any life, especially the life of an intelligent military strategist like this commander, to be heinous.

Jim considered the commander. The bridge crew had been secretly visually monitoring him and his crew throughout the entire conflict. The commander was just as handsome in person, behind a security field, as he had been on-screen. His curly hair and skin were dark, his monolid eyes held a burning intelligence as they examined Jim just as closely as he was examining the commander.

They had matched wits on the battlefield, two sides of a culturally disparate coin. Except one side now faced the inside of a prison cell, for the time being. The outcome of a fairly matched exchange. One not without casualties.

Not all of the Romulans had been beamed out in time.

Half of this commander’s crew was gone, including his second in command whom Jim and his crew had watched perish in their surveillance. The ghost of the resigned, defeated commander who had engaged this vessel’s self-destruct sequence lingered in those eyes.

But the Romulan before him held more life in his face and stature than Jim had expected. He was eyeing Jim with too much interest, the angry glint in his dark eyes muted, but present. He seemed to understand his situation and acknowledge Jim’s victory but that didn’t mean he was going to give Jim any information about himself or an explanation as to why the Romulan government had decided to dismiss the Terran-Romulan Treaty, seemingly in its entirety.

“I must say, you have beautiful hands, captain.”

The comment made any of Jim’s good humor disappear. He moved to clasp the padd behind is back, pointedly hiding his hands from the Romulan’s view. “I don’t appreciate sexual harassment on my ship, commander.”

The Romulan commander considered Jim under hooded lids, a vendor surveying product. “You are a learned man, captain, to know so much of vulcanoid biology.” An eye-crinkling smile on a vulcanoid face was a sight to behold. It only served to render the commander more handsome, even as the words he spoke tarnished his attractive qualities. “Tell me then, captain, have you been kissed by a vulcanoid?”

Jim sighed through his nose, already tired of this line of exchange. This wasn’t the first time Jim had been harassed by a prisoner, it likely wouldn’t be the last. “I’m afraid I won’t tolerate inappropriate comments, commander—” Jim began, keeping his expression neutral.

“—By your Vulcan officer, perhaps?” he interrupted, ignoring Jim’s warning.

Jim felt his expression turn stony as he closed his mouth. He didn’t appreciate the implication the commander was making.

The commander’s slanted brows lifted, reminding Jim of the vulcanoid he was most familiar with. “My apologies. Your…commander, is it? He is the only Vulcan I have seen on this ship. I merely assumed,” the commander demurred.

Jim knew Spock had been part of the detail that escorted the Romulan commander to his prison cell. It served to concrete Spock’s allegiance as a member of the crew and their superior officer, despite sharing physiological features with their most recent adversary.

Jim loosened his clenched jaw. “The Vulcan diaspora ranges extensively throughout the Federation,” he informed the commander, maintaining an even tone. “My commander is not the only Vulcan in Starfleet.”

“Yes, I imagine that…diaspora is coming in handy considering the recent destruction of Mekh-il.”

Jim blinked at the proper name resisting translation through the UT.

“The mother planet, captain,” the Romulan clarified with a sardonic twist of his lips. “The cradle from which all Romulans hail.”

Somewhere in him, Jim’s intrinsic curiosity sparked. But he kept his face placid.

“I wasn’t aware Romulans remembered Vulcan so fondly.”

The commander leaned back against the cold metal wall of his cell, deceptively relaxed. “Mehk-il is the mother planet—weak. A temporary haven for children and babes.” The commander glanced over, eyes hard like slate, that fire reappearing. “Romula is the father planet. He forged us. Made us the warriors we were meant to be, not the ill-bred lapdogs of the Federation.”

Jim glanced away as he lifted his eyebrow, allowing the corner of his lip to curl up. When he glanced back up, the commander’s eyes had turned from slate to cold ice. He probably didn’t appreciate Jim laughing at the expense of his planet and culture.

“Sorry—that’s interesting, is all.” Jim straightened, allowing his eyes to wander over the commander’s bare cell. The rest of the commander’s crew were being kept in a separate part of the brig. Spock had informed him that all the surviving Romulans had proved to be psi-null. They had no way of communicating with their commander so long as they were kept physically separate.

“In Earth culture, Vulcan is the god of the forge, of weapons and metalcraft. Romulus and Remus were children raised by wolves.” Jim tilted his head, smiling sardonically. “It’s just interesting to me who you consider to be the dog in this situation, is all.”

The commander remained quiet, his dark eyes burning for a moment before coldly stating, “Your commander is a traitor to his kind, captain. I would hesitate to delegate any significant share of power to such a person on my own ship.”

Jim focused on a small blemish on the interior of the cell, not allowing the Romulan commander his full attention. “Last I checked, commander, you no longer have a ship. Besides, I sincerely doubt my first officer has any designs to destroy the Federation from the inside—as you’re certainly, if mistakenly, implicating.”

Jim glanced at the commander’s narrowed expression, clarifying, “He’s half human, if that’s worth anything.”

The commander blinked before his expression turned deceptively—well, not relaxed, but certainly more at ease than before. “Do you mean to tell me, captain, that your first officer is Commander Spock?”

The commander’s change in demeanor immediately put Jim on alert, but he kept the attentiveness out of his features, asking innocently, “You know of Spock?”

The commander’s smile was bare. “We are aware of Commander Spock.”

We. The Romulan Empire. The Romulan Empire was aware of the existence of Spock, and his commission as an officer of Starfleet.

Jim maintained eye contact with the commander for a moment. The Romulan’s relaxed expression never wavered. 

“Right.”

Jim turned to pace the length of the security field, hands still grasping the padd behind his back. “You have me at a disadvantage, commander.” He lightly shrugged one shoulder, dancing the familiar diplomatic dance. “You know about us, but we don’t know anything about you.”

“What would you like to know, captain? Let’s see,” The commander hummed, his hands resting relaxed on his knees. “You have already insulted my culture and my planet, I’m not sure what else I can offer you to slander.”

“Perhaps your name, to begin with.”

“You wish to slander my name?” There was that slightly coy tone again.

Jim came to a stop in front of the commander, looking down through the force field with an empty smile.

“I wish to know your name, commander. Where I come from, it’s only polite to learn your neighbor’s name.”

They stared at each other. Jim let his smile melt from his face as he surveyed the commander’s subtly sharp expression. Half of this man’s crew were dead. Jim didn’t expect him to be forthcoming in the least. The man didn’t owe anything to Jim. And Jim understood.

The commander had been bested. He was well within his rights to tell Jim to go to hell.

He didn’t do that.

The commander’s sharp expression didn’t waver as he smiled, eyes crinkling slightly. “I will tell you my name, captain, if you join me in this cell.”

The commander paused to let the cutting request sink in, before continuing.

“I do not tell my name to those who are unequal to me. Like you, captain, I am at a disadvantage. Sit with me in my cell and break bread and then we will be equals. Only then will I tell you my name. Neighbor to neighbor.”

His voice was warm as he explained patiently, as if the commander were inviting Jim to take tea in his personal reception area, and not in an enemy prisoner’s cell.

It was not a request Jim would be granting.

Jim stepped away from the security field, not looking back at his prisoner as he stepped behind the security console. He pressed the button to activate the communication intercom, “Midshipman Lavone, report to the brig for security relief.”

Jim turned to face his prisoner in the cell one last time.

“My name is James. James Tiberius Kirk.” Jim smiled at the shift in micro-expressions on the commander’s face.

Jim shrugged at the reaction to the name he shared with at least three Romulan emperors, long dead. “My parents were eclectic people.”

Jim felt the commander’s dark eyes on him as he made his way to the exit. He nearly didn’t catch the Romulan’s low, “Captain,” calling him to wait.

Jim paused as the door to the brig hissed open.

The commander’s expression was mild, the fire behind those eyes burning low for now. “Well met, Captain Kirk.”

Jim took one last look at the defeated Romulan, the resplendent king in his own prison.

“Well met, commander.”

**Author's Note:**

> This episode made me foam at the mouth when I first watched it years ago. I'll be revisiting this pairing


End file.
